One day trip to Mannar in 2026

 I went to Mannar with 2 fellow photography friends in the 2nd week of February. The main objective of my friends was to see the rare migrant, the short eared owl which has been hanging around in the area for few days. Though I was one of the few to photograph this bird inside the  port city in Colomo a few months back , I joined the trip to make it a point to enjoy this interesting place hoping to see some lifers. The other  highlight was doing the trip in record time  and was suddenly planned by one of the friends in less than half a day. We started at 12 midnight and arrived in Mannar at 5.15 in the morning and then did a lot of traveling covering the entire area leaving at 6 in the evening and was back at home by 11.40 in the night. It was a fruitful trip for me on the virtue of the fact I did make up my mind not to go this year as the the number of the migrant birds were much less this time and by going , I was able to continue doing the annual trip.

The main highlight of Mannar during the bird migration is seeing the Greater flamingos . However this time the number has been very low and was less than 300 birds.

Rosy starling

Collard dove

Black drongo

Jacobin cuckoo

A colony of streaked  weaver birds

Caspian terns

Lesser black backed gulls and brown headed gulls

Brown headed gull in flight

lesser black backed gull in flight

A stepped gull

Western reef heron

Asian palm swift

A black tailed godwit in breeding plumage

Male garganey

A male northern shoveler

female gargany

Glossy ibis

Curlew sandpipers in flight

Common redshans

Curlew sandpipers

WHIMBREL

Common scene in these parts

An unusualfriendship

Blue faced malkoha- A common sight but very difficult to photograph

This is a new born cub less than a few hours old and was struggling to get around near a stream. The oldish owner tried to separate from the mother by carrying it to a better and safer place and though the mother challenged and charged him a few times thinking that the cub was being taken away, finally they got together and the cub found the best place by instinct.

Although the birding was generally poor managed to see another lifer- Migrant lesser white throat a member of the silvia babblers.